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Zenith AeroTech TAV Stays Aloft for 108 Hours of Continuous
Flight
Zenith AeroTech, a developer of heavy-lift tethered
aerial vehicles (TAVs), announced that, over the span of a week, its Quad 8
multi-rotor platform flew a total of 161 hours and 49 minutes—108 hours of
which were continuous, uninterrupted flight.
In doing so, the TAV far exceeded the
capabilities of competing tethered drones and demonstrated its ability to serve
as a long-endurance platform for persistent surveillance.
“Small, multirotor-type drones are
notorious for their limited air endurance. By contrast, tethered aerial
vehicles, which draw power from a generator on the ground, can stay aloft for
hours at a stretch,” said Kutlay Kaya, CEO of Zenith Aerotech. “But no other
TAV company has ever been able to fly a platform for as long as we just did.
This is a major technological breakthrough for small unmanned systems.”
The test, which took place over a
seven-day period at the company’s facility in Afton, was initiated at the
request of a government customer prior to delivery. The Quad 8 TAV, which
carried an electro-optical/infrared camera and an Echodyne EchoFlight radar,
flew for most of that time, only coming down twice, during lightning storms,
which had to be waited out.
“We observed all the FAA regulations for
day and nighttime operation,” Kaya said. “Our team was on site around the
clock, with people taking 8-hour shifts to watch the TAV and the Ground
Power-Tether Management System. There were two times we had to bring down the
Quad 8, but as soon as those storms subsided, the TAV was back in the air. We
flew through 18 hours of light to heavy rain with wind gusts up to 40 mph.”
Zenith AeroTech recently partnered with
Sydney-based DroneShield to provide enhanced drone-detection capabilities and
countermeasures. In putting DroneShield’s DroneSentry-C2 command-and-control
application, along with an Echodyne radar, onto a TAV, Zenith AeroTech provided
a platform with a higher elevation than the standard mast. This eliminated
clutter and false positives, allowing for better counter-drone detection. Now
it provides extreme long-endurance too.
“By demonstrating more than 100 hours of
flight time, we’ve opened up our TAV to all sorts of mission sets and
customers,” Kaya said. “It’s a really very
exciting.”
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